The need for speed was top of mind for chipmakers this year at MWC 2014.
Qualcomm is focusing on LTE-A Category 6 connectivity in smartphones and network infrastructure. The mobile chip giant teamed up with Samsung to showcase download speeds of up to 300 Mbps on a Galaxy Note 3. South Korean carriers SK Telecom and KT were also part of the project, which used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 processor and Gobi 9×35 modem.
On the network side, Qualcomm used the same modem in an LTE-A Cat 6 demo with Ericsson. The Gobi 9×35 modem supports up to 40 MHz wideband carrier aggregation deployments on FDD and TDD networks and is manufactured on 20 nm process.
Altair says that enterprise broadband provider BEC Technologies will embed its single-mode LTE chipsets in a wide range of routers, gateways, industrial M2M and public safety wireless devices. Altair has been a leader in commercialization of LTE-only modems, which can provide significant cost savings to device makers since they are manufactured with fewer radios than multi-mode chipsets.
“Altair’s unique modem implementation allows for more robust connectivity and spectrum utilization even when a large distance exists between cell sites. This answers a critical need for many of our service providers and their customers,” said Andy Germano of BEC Technologies.
Broadcom raised the bar in the Wi-Fi connectivity arena with a new 802.11ac chip that the company says will double smartphone throughput speeds on Wi-Fi networks. In addition, Broadcom says the new chips offer a 30% increase in coverage range, and a 25% reduction in power use. The BCM4354 is the industry’s first 2×2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) combo chip for smartphones.
The way a user holds his or her smartphone can impact the device’s performance over Wi-Fi networks, according to Broadcom. The company says its new solution addresses this problem. “With Broadcom’s advanced antenna and PHY design, the BCM4354 can now deliver the benefits of 5G WiFi 2×2 MIMO to smaller platform designs like smartphones while reducing implementation complexity for designers,” the company said. (5G WiFi is another name for 802.11ac, since the standard uses the 5 GHz spectrum.)
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